SECOND SHIFT Music Series Performance: TOM CARTER

"Tom Carter is a modern titan… one of the most thoughtful, imaginative instrumentalists working today.” –– Pitchfork

"An uncanny ability to push his guitar playing to unearthly limits, while still retaining a spare simplicity that, while unusual and unorthodox, never ceases to remain completely engaging and steeped in majestic beauty." –– Tiny Mix Tapes

TOM CARTER is one of America’s great guitar iconoclasts, and one of its most powerful and communicative improvisers. His solo work sculpts a rich landscape of grit and beauty.

Born just south of the Mason-Dixon line Carter, the son of a newspaper man, spent his early years in various farm and mining towns in Maryland and Ohio. His influences include American pre-punk, British post-punk and Texas psychedelia.

In 1990 Carter formed the groundbreaking Charalambides with Christina Carter. The Wire describes the band’s forays into folk, psych and improvisation as “truly 21st century experimental ethnic music.”

Carter has focused on solo work since 2012. His 2015 double LP Long Time Underground is the final installment of a trilogy begun in 2009. Calling the album a masterpiece, Pitchfork chose Long Time Underground as 2015’s number-one experimental release.

Tom Carter’s collaborators include such luminaries as Thurston Moore, Ben Chasny, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Helena Espvall and Steve Gunn –– to name a few. His ongoing projects include Eleven Twenty-Nine with Marc Orleans and Michael Evans, and Badgerlore, with Chasny, Rob Fisk and others. Carter lives in New York City.